Rep. Barbara Lee is helping to leading dozens of House members in demanding that an extension of emergency unemployment benefits be part of whatever “fiscal cliff” solution is worked out between Congress and the White House.

When I interviewed Lee, D-Oakland, last week for my story in Saturday’s editions about the Bay Area delegation’s stance on the negotiations, she had said this was among her top priorities.

Congress in February reduced the maximum number of weeks from 99 to 73 — which Lee called “totally unconscionable” — and now it’s about to fall back to six months, cutting off more than 2 million people. Maintaining the benefits until at least 73 weeks is imperative, she said.

“Not only is it the right thing to do but it’s the economically prudent thing to do,” Lee said last week, noting that unemployment benefit dollars usually go directly out into the economy as the jobless feed, clothe and shelter their families.

“Every one dollar spent on unemployment insurance generates $1.55 in economic activity,” Lee said in a news release today. “With millions of Americans still struggling to recover from the recession, we cannot afford to strip one of the only remaining lifelines for workers that are eager to get back to work.”

Read the entire Lee/Peters letter, after the jump…

Dear House and Senate Leaders,

While our economy is showing signs of recovery with the addition of 171,000 jobs in October 2012 and the unemployment under 8%, over 12 million Americans remain unemployed. The long-term unemployment rate – the share of unemployed workers who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer – was over 40% throughout the entirety of 2010 and 2011, and persists at a rate of 40.6% in October 2012. This is an unprecedented level of long-term unemployment; the previous peak, in June 1983, was just 26%.

Unemployment benefits are a proven lifeline to families that they rely on to help pay for necessities such as rent, groceries, and utilities. Expansions to the unemployment insurance program enacted in the Recovery Act and subsequent legislation in 2009 and 2010 lifted over 3.2 million Americans out of poverty in 2010, and 2.3 million in 2011 including over 600,000 children.

As House and Senate leadership negotiate legislation addressing expiring tax provisions, cuts mandated by sequestration, and the Medicare sustainable growth rate, we urge you to include a robust extension of federal unemployment benefits for American workers. Given the unprecedented levels of long-term unemployment our nation currently faces, a full extension of unemployment benefits through 2013 should represent the minimum acceptable extension in any year-end compromise legislation. Should Congress fail to act by the last week of December, over two million workers will immediately lose their federal unemployment benefits.

Disconcertingly, federal unemployment benefits were already reduced earlier this year; the total cap on combined state and federal unemployment benefits was cut from 99 weeks at the beginning of 2012 to 73 weeks currently. Additionally, the need to extend federal unemployment benefits is amplified by unprecedented cuts to both the amount and duration of unemployment benefits made by a number of states.

We also have serious concerns about proposals that divert unemployment funds from direct recipients or that subject recipients to new drug testing and education requirements which create barriers for our nation’s unemployed. We encourage House and Senate leadership to ensure that states use their unemployment funds, as they have historically done, to compensate recipients and not for any other purpose, and reject efforts to create new barriers for eligible individuals seeking unemployment benefits.

Reducing federal unemployment benefits would plunge hundreds of thousands of Americans into poverty and jeopardize our nation’s economic recovery. With millions of American workers relying on these benefits to make ends meet as our nation’s economic recovery continues to take hold, now is not the time to roll back this critical lifeline. We urge you to come together and ensure that unemployment benefits remain available to American workers when they need it most.

I, too, have serious concerns about requiring jobless recipients to stay off dope and learn to read at a level teens would consider respectable.

Elwood

Punish the rich! Give their money to the poor!

“OAKLAND — Liberals took to Bay Area streets Monday as part of a national day of action, urging Congress to avoid the looming “fiscal cliff” by raising taxes on the rich and protecting social programs against cuts.”

A policy adopted by the California High-Speed Rail Authority board Thursday set definitions for “disadvantaged workers” who would be targeted for jobs building the rail line. Some qualities that would define an applicant as disadvantaged:

• Homeless

• Veteran

• Single parent who has custody of a child

• On public assistance

• Lacking a high school diploma

• Felon

• Chronically unemployed

• Apprentice with fewer than 15 percent of the necessary hours to graduate from a trade program